This invention relates to a safety device for water sport boards, to protect people using the boards or bystanders from injury should the tip of the board impact the user or bystander. The safety tip is a variation of that shown in our U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,316. The safety tip disclosed in that patent has been remarkably successful in the marketplace, and has gained wide acceptance in the industry. While it is an excellent and versatile product, for some water sport boards wider than conventional surfboards, or for surfboards that are thinner or thicker than conventional, the safety tip does not accommodate the boards quite to the extent desirable. A further modified form of that construction is disclosed in our co-pending patent application Ser. No. 07/287,975 filed Dec. 20, 1988, which is particularly useful in association with wind surfing boards. The revised construction of safety tip illustrated therein, because of its configuration, is essentially limited to wind surfing boards, and does not have broad versatility.
According to the present invention, a safety tip for a water sport board is provided that will accommodate wider, thinner, and thicker boards better than the design in our U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,316, and is applicable to all types of surfboards and the like, including--but not restricted to--wind surfing boards. The invention contains all of the same characteristics of the widely accepted protective tip of our U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,316 as far as protecting the surfers and bystanders, without adversely altering the performance characteristics of the board, are concerned. The material of which the safety tip according to the invention is made, and the general method of construction, are the same as for our patented tip, only the configuration of the tip being different.
According to the invention, there is provided in combination with a water sport board of the type having a sharply angled forward tip portion (including a top, bottom, and tapered sides) means for affording protection to the user of the board from injury upon contact with the tip portion, while not adversely altering the performance characteristics of the board. The protection affording means comprises an integral relatively soft, resilient plastic (preferably liquid injected silicone) tip cover, having a rounded exterior nose portion, a main body portion engaging the top, bottom, and tapered sides of the board, and upper and lower extension portions extending rearwardly from the body portion and engaging only the top and bottom of the board. The tip cover is fixedly secured to the tip portion of the board, for example by silicone adhesive between the body portion and the extension portions and the parts of the board that they overlay. The tip cover extension portions preferably taper to a point, and also preferably have a thickness decreasing slightly from the body portion to the pointed tip. The preferred material is liquid injected silicone having a durometer A hardness of about 35 to 40, a tensile strength of about 1,000-1,150 psi, and a tear resistance, Die B, of about 160-175 psi.
The invention also contemplates a protective tip cover for the forward tip of a water sport board which comprises a soft, resilient cushioning member for protecting the user of the board, the tip cover having been earlier described. Because of the construction of the tip cover, including the relatively short main body portion and with the upper and lower extensions which provide the primary mechanism for securement of the cover to the nose of the board, the tip cover according to the invention more easily accommodates wider, thinner, and thicker boards than the tip cover in our U.S. Pat. No. 4,792,316.
It is the primary object of the present invention to provide a versatile safety tip for water sport boards. This and other objects of the invention will become clear from an inspection of the detailed description of the invention and from the appended claims.